Ok, yesterday my wife was using her iMac and it was fine until she got a beachball for about 20 minutes. So she decided to turn it off. Then today she went to start it up and got a folder with a question mark on it.

I have tried flashing the pram which didn't do anything.
I have tried a whole host of different keyboard settings:
Holding Option on start up (Nothing happened. just got my mouse curser)
holding command + R on start up (Just went to the question mark folder)
holding down shift on start up (Just went to the question mark folder)
and a few other things.

Nothing seems to work. All just goes back to the folder, what can I do?

__________________The rising People, hot and out of breath,
Roared round the palace: "Liberty or death!"
"If death will do," the King said, "let me reign;
You'll have, I'm sure, no reason to complain."

Never had the hard drive out. And I have tried holding option down and nothing happens. And I don't have an original start up disk either. And now with Lion and Mountain Lion, there is no start up disk.

I was hoping no one would say that. I was hoping for someone to give me the "magic" keyboard command. Anyways, I guess I am off to buy a new drive. Thanks for the help. If you think of anything else , let me know.